For the first time in many years, the Scottish Open was won this year by a Scottish-born player. Local native Sandy Taylor 2d (Durham) won all five games to take his first tournament title at the Open, held May 28-29 in Dundee. The closure of long-term sponsor Real Time Worlds and a local wedding anniversary contributed to a drop in attendance, with 23 players participating. A new sponsor, Denki — a locally-based “digital toy factory” — ensured that, as ever, all players took away a jar of Dundee’s famous marmalade. Prizes were also awarded to David Lee 2d (Dundee) and Dieter Daems 9k (Leuven) for four wins out of five, and to Martha McGill 2k (Edinburgh), Boris Mitrovic 2k (Edinburgh), Tom Croonenborghs 1d (Antwerp), Eugene Kee-Onn Wong 4k (Glasgow) and Andrew Thurman 7k (Durham) for three wins. Edwin Brady 1k (St Andrews) and Sandy Taylor 2d (Durham) jointly won the Lightning tournament with three wins out of four.- Tony Atkins, based on his report on the BGA website

Matthew Macfadyen, the 2010 British Champion, has won all seven games in the Challengers’ League May 27-30 to earn the right to defend his title. This year he will be playing Nick Krempel 3d (London), who won five games in the League, in a best-of-3 final. Hui Wang and Alistair Wall just missed out on playing for the title by one win each.- Tony Atkins, based on his report on the BGA website

Ian Marsh, the organizer of the Bracknell Tournament, was also the winner. Marsh 1k (Bracknell) was the best of the 28 players at the May 15 UK tournament. Also winning all three were Xinyi Lu 4k (Maidenhead) and Laurence Anderson 7k (Bracknell). Poland’s Marcel Zantman 6k won two and then had a last round jigo. Bahareh Afshari won the problem solving, Mike Charles won the 13×13 and Peter Collins won the caption contest.- Tony Atkins, based on his report on the BGA website

As in Paris, the 40th Prague Tournament was easy prey for Yuanbo Liu 2P (r), better known as MilaMilan, who swept again with a 100% score. Best of the West was Ondrej Silt 6d, losing only to Liu. This year’s European Youth Champion under 20, Pavol Lisy 5d, only lost to Yuanbo and came in third. Young talents Lukas Podpera 4d, 2010-2011 European Youth Champion under 16 Mateusz Surma 5d and Jan Prokop 4d came in 4th, 5th and 6th in this 101-player field. - EuroGoTV

If you like world-class wine with your go, this is the year to plan to attend the European Go Congress. The Zhuyeqing Tea 55th European Go Congress is set for July 23rd to August 6th in Bordeaux, France. The EGC will host two major events this year in addition to a 10-round main tournament – which determines the 2011 European champion – the usual side tournaments, workshop and simuls with professional players. The Pandanet Go European Team Championship will hold its finals during the first weekend, and the China Weiqi League will also play a round during the EGC. Sightseeing will be organized during days off during the two-week event, and Bordeaux offers world-famous vineyards, including in the village of St Emilion, architectural sights, an interesting city center as well as many lakes and rivers and the ocean, which are located nearby. There are also plans to organize tours to the famous Pyla sandhill.

Over 1,000 spectators showed up to cheer on their favorite youth players at the 3rd Transatlantic Youth Match, held Sunday, April 17 on KGS. From the start, it was a very close match, as the two under-12 boards split their games 1-1 early on in the first series. While the North American side took the lead with victories by Andrew Lu and Jianing Gan, the Europeans quickly answered, tying the match 3-3 at the end of the series with Ali Jabarin’s victory over Bill Lin. The second series was equally nail-biting. Although the Europeans were seemingly down on their last leg, with victories by Gansheng Shi and Daniel Gourdeau putting them in a 4-5 hole, a close win by Thomas Debarre over Ryan Li tied the match up once again. In the last game to finish, Ricky Zhao had a slight lead against Mateusz Surma, but a large ko in the end proved to be too much for him to handle, giving the Europeans a 6-5 win, their first ever in the history of the Transatlantic Youth Match. More details, including game records, can be found on the TrabsAtlantic Youth website http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/TransAtlanticYouth/3/
- reported by Lawrence Ku, who also organized the match

Pandanet Go European Cup Finals. The Pandanet Go European Cup finals will be held in Paris, April 23-25, in conjunction with the 39th annual Paris Go International Tournament. The first two boards will be broadcast on EuroGoTV, and all the top games will be relayed to IGS, along with one game each round that will be relayed to KGS. Over 200 players from 20 countries are expected at the tournament. Greece-Cyprus Go Match. Alexios Voudouris 3D of Greece and Dimitris Regginos 1D of Cyprus, who are among the top players for their respective countries, are playing a ten-game series on KGS. The games will be played weekly and the first was a win for Regginos by resignation on April 14.

As aftershocks continue to hit Japan, more go tournaments are raising funds to aid in the earthquake/tsunami recovery efforts. This Saturday the Tsunami Relief Tournament will be held in New York City; space is very limited, so you MUST pre-register: email Badukboris@gmail.com And thanks to sponsorship of the April 30 Western Maryland Go Club Spring Tournament by the Insei League on KGS, “we will be able to donate the majority of the entry fees to the tournament to Japan relief efforts,” reports Trevor Morris. Pre-registration is not required, but if you think you might be coming, let them know on Facebook. The recent Go4 Japan tournament – usually known as the Antwerp Go Tournament – raised $800 for the Japanese Red Cross Society. The April 9-10 event in Antwerp, Belgium drew 30 participants from Belgium and Holland, and “we made both the regional newspaper and television, which is nice as well,” reports Joost Vannieuwenhuyse.